He's the snow man

Craig Baldwin didn't need to wait around for the season's first blanket of snow.

Baldwin, 36, of Saginaw Township, built his own snow-making machine along with his 8-year-old son, David. The two fine-tuned the machine throughout the summer and put it to work for the first time on Thanksgiving eve.

"We're snow fanatics," Craig Baldwin said. "I've been playing around with the idea of something like this since I was 8 years old."

An air compressor and power washer are the main components of Craig Baldwin's creation. He said additional parts cost about $50.

The machine consists of four nozzles. Two of the nozzles spray compressed water.
Below those sits the "nucleation" nozzle, which Craig Baldwin says is the key to the whole snow-making process. It's where water droplets become ice crystals.

"Without the nucleation nozzle, you're just spraying water into the air," he said.